March 2006 - AHFA's E-Business Task Force marked its five-year anniversary recently with a self-evaluation that revealed both progress and new challenges. The Task Force helped unite various industry segments, including the Furniture Industry Data Exchange (FIDX), the National Home Furnishings Association and the Home Furnishings International Association. FIDX became the primary work group. Read the complete article.

December 26, 2005 - AHFA's E-Business Task Force: Much accomplished, much to do. The industry now has an extensive electronic infrastructure in place. Read the Furniture/Today story.

March 7, 2003 - The UCC announces an end to the EDI communications ID assignment. Members will have to get GLN's will be instead. See the UCC website for the complete press release.

November 4, 2002 - The UCC mentioned the furniture industry is involved in a positive development of a BRW (Business Requirement Worksheet) You can download copy of the EAN-UCC Standard Connections newsletter here. Look under "Order BRG" on page 2.

October 11, 2002 - Wal-Mart launches Internet EDI initiative. Offering free software and support Wal-Mart is increasing the pressure on their vendors to trade dial-up modems connections for the AS2 standard Internet-based system. Read more (Word file).

August 4, 2002 - The Uniform Code Council, Inc. (UCC), leaders in facilitating efficient international business, and RosettaNet, the high technology industry’s leading e-business standards consortium, announced a merger between the two organizations. Under the agreement, RosettaNet will become a subsidiary of the UCC, while continuing to operate as an entity directly with its members. The merger is aimed at strengthening the development and adoption of business-to-business (B2B) standards across the industries served by the two organizations and expanding the standards-based business opportunities for respective member companies. Read more.

May 17, 2002 - The Executive and Steering committee sent several members to meet with the UCC in Princeton, NJ. They reported on the events and future relationship with the UCC at the Working Group meeting held in Charlotte.

October 1, 2001 - Fran Moser from the UCC gives feedback on the FIDX standards process.

September 20, 2001 - Charlotte.  Because of the tragic events of September 11th, the FIDX organization felt it was important to meet and conduct business. Despite transportation still being a problem for some members, attendance was excellent with 36 leaders from the industry meeting in Charlotte for the all-day working session. Press Release.

May 14 & 15, 2001 - Charlotte. The working group announced the release of its second e-business standard, the Product Catalog schema. Forty three people representing retail, manufacturing and business systems met in a conference room at the Charlotte airport Monday and Tuesday for a special XML training class and to review XML schemas for e-business. This was the third time the group has met to work on standards for the furniture industry. In March, they completed work on a Purchase Order schema, and yesterday they released the Product Catalog schema. Press Release

April 20, 2001- FIDX approved the Purchase Order schema for adoption by the industry. The schema will be sent to the UCC for consideration as an international PO schema for the furniture industry.

March 15, 2001 - Charlotte. The furnXML working group met in Charlotte to review the final version of the Purchase Order schema. The schema was adopted and sent to FIDX for final approval and adoption by the industry as an official standard. The Catalog Product schema was introduced to the group for first draft comments.

January 19, 2001 - The open XML workshop was attended by 36 participants from around the country. Good representation from retail, manufacturing, suppliers and vendors made for lively but very productive discussions. More details. 

December 15, 2000 - The first open XML workshop was announced. It will be held in Charlotte, North Carolina January 19th.

November 20, 2000 - The AFMA is hoping to drive standards for B2B by leveraging their resources and collective power. Led by Talmage Fish from Hooker, the association plans to produce guidelines for systems developers and suppliers around the beginning of 2001. More details.

October 20, 2000 - The first open meeting to discuss XML and proposed standards was held October 20th on the 12th floor of the IHFC.  More details.

October 16, 2000 - FIDX announces first of many standards endorsements. Story in Furniture Today.

October 16, 2000 - United Business Media, a U.K. publisher to launch B2B trade exchange. Story in Furniture Today.

September 6, 2000 - The proposed Product Catalog Data (PCD) and Purchase Order standard scheduled to be released August 15 is nearing completion and will be available on furnxml before the October Furniture Market.  Following the August 8th FIDX meeting It became clear that the AFMA, NHFA, HFIA and FIDX will all support standards developed by the UCC in conjunction with their European equivalent (EAN).  The UCC/EAN standards are endorsed by the Global Commerce Initiative (GCI) and the first XML schemas were published at the end of July.  The current forms of the PCD and PO standards have been revised to conform to the  UCC/EAN schemas.

August 8, 2000 - FIDX met in Lexington, NC to discuss AS-IS and TO-BE modeling. FIDX and AFMA endorsed the use of UCC128 barcode standards. The role of the GCI, FIDX and the Blue Ribbon committee was identified as one of endorsing a technology standard, not to actually create it. 

August 1,2000 - New updated purchase order documents for upholstery are posted from Micro*D.

July 13, 2000 - Ron Martell from Micro*D is requesting feedback on the documents posted in the download area.